Saturday, January 3, 2009

You can watch the action live on The Uptake. Meanwhile Nate Silver is up with an analysis of the 953 rejected absentee ballots that will be counted; he's predicting that Franken will net 31 votes, extending his lead to 80. He throws cold water on the idea that Coleman has excluded many more ballots than Franken from the counting.

The apparent edge for Franken comes as each campaign has had essentially a unilateral veto to prevent any particular absentee ballot from being opened and counted. Initially, based on a review of the process in Democratic stronghold St. Louis county, it appeared that the Coleman campaign was being far more aggressive than the Franken campaign in exercising its veto. Information gathered by additional counties by the Star Tribune, however, suggests that this may not be the case, and that the Franken campaign has been at least as aggressive as Coleman in exercising its veto.

Also the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Coleman campaigns request to put a halt to the whole thing in order for them to change the rules to their liking. Lots of action going on today.